I have never been brilliant with sat navs, so it was hardly a surprise when ours tried to send us through what appeared to be someone's front garden just outside Liege. My partner, ever the optimist, suggested we "give it a go." Reader, we did not give it a go. What followed was twenty minutes of increasingly narrow Walloon lanes, a near-miss with a very judgmental-looking goat, and the dawning realisation that I had somehow set the device to avoid all main roads. By the time we found the turning for our Comblinay, I had aged approximately eleven years and developed a nervous twitch every time a hedge approached the passenger window.

The property itself materialised like a reward for our suffering. Tucked into a fold of green hillside, it was the sort of place that makes you forget you ever owned a smartphone. Stone walls, proper wooden shutters, that particular hush you only get when you are genuinely nowhere. I stood in the gravel drive, still clutching the steering wheel in phantom terror, and felt something in my chest unclench for the first time since Calais.

Our host had left the key in a tin that was apparently "obvious" but which took us ten minutes and some undignified rummaging through a flowerbed to locate. The door opened with that satisfying weight old doors have, and we stepped into a kitchen that smelled faintly of woodsmoke and previous occupants' excellent taste in coffee. I immediately walked into a low beam, because I am six foot two and Belgian farmhouses were apparently built by and for elves. My partner laughed for a full minute while I rubbed my forehead and contemplated the indignity of it all.

We had intended to unpack properly, perhaps make a sensible cup of tea and consult a map about sensible tourist activities. Instead, we threw our bags in the general direction of the bedroom and went wandering. This proved to be the best decision of the entire trip.

The path behind the property looked official for approximately fifty metres, then dissolved into something that can only be described as "suggestive." We followed it anyway, because holiday courage is a real phenomenon. It led us down through a copse where the afternoon light came through in proper golden shafts, the sort that make amateur photographers insufferable. I took forty-seven identical photographs of a tree. No regrets.

We emerged somewhere we had not planned to be, which became the theme of the week. A field of something agricultural and unidentifiable. A stream where we sat on a fallen log and shared a squashed sandwich from the car. A clearing where someone had long ago abandoned a rusted plough, now overgrown with wildflowers that my partner spent twenty minutes trying to name using a phone app that required signal we absolutely did not have.

Getting lost became our daily ritual. Each morning we would set out with vague intentions and return with discoveries. The bakery in a village I cannot pronounce, where the woman spoke no English and we communicated entirely through pointing and enthusiastic nodding. The bench with a view of a valley we never found again, despite two determined attempts. The moment we stumbled into what appeared to be a private orchard, froze in mutual panic, and were waved through by an elderly man who seemed genuinely delighted by our obvious trespassing.

I am normally a planner. Spreadsheets feature in my holiday preparation. This trip taught me that my best memories now live in the gaps between plans, in the wrong turns and the uncertain paths. The sat nav mishap that began everything feels almost prophetic. Some things you cannot programme, and some of the finest places refuse to be found on purpose.

On our final evening, we sat on the Comblinay's terrace with wine that cost less than it should and watched the light fade over hills we had accidentally learned by heart. My forehead still bore a faint mark from that first beam. I touched it, smiled, and decided to leave the sat nav behind entirely on tomorrow's drive home.